rheumatoidia

So now I'm on 15mg of Meth per week and still not having to take the anti-emetic although it is wiping me out a little each weekend.

I was looking at the sort of doses of Methotrexate cancer patients are given - about 30mg it seems, and felt quite chuffed with myself for handling it so well until I realised they take 30mg per day. Hats off to them.

So after two weeks of 2 x 2.5mg of Methotrexate I've just taken 4 x 2.5 mg.

I know these are trivial doses for some cancer patients; and although I was quite ill the first week I took Meth, I was fine the second week on the same dosage. But now I've doubled it. I'm expecting a duff weekend.

I blacked out this morning. Luckily I was in hospital at the time.

I'd popped along for my fortnightly blood test but this time the phlebotomist couldn't get the vein in my arm to show itself properly; it was just a faint bluish trace under the soft skin of the crook of my elbow. After about five minutes tapping me and strapping my right arm she gave up and tried the left, with no better luck. So she went ahead anyway.

Took the first dose yesterday - 2 x 2.5 mg tablets. For the first go, my doctor had suggested to me that I might like to skip the anti-nausea pills, just to see if I needed them.

So 24hours later I haven't been sick, have felt only mildly nauseous, although I have been very tired today, something that could be a coincidence, an effect of the drug, or an effect of the rheumatoid arthritis. Impossible to tell.

I'm taking the folic acid on Monday to help with the anemia side-effect. Then blood tests every two weeks, results of which I'll post here, I think.

At the hospital, I had my blood tests, blood pressure taken, was weighed, measured, injected with a steroid in my arse, investigated by the registrar who, worryingly, had Wikipedia open to the Rheumatoid Arthritis entry, had both hands, both feet and my chest X-rayed, met the consultant who confirmed the diagnosis and told my I couldn't have methotexrate and an anti-TNF unless I had an extra £10,000 hanging about but that I could have methotexrate.

The prescription's at my GP, to be picked up next week, pills to be taken each Friday in steadily increasing doses, with a before-and-after anti-emetic, and folic acid on a Monday. Fortnightly blood tests to be taken.

Sounds great fun.

So tomorrow's my first hospital consultancy appointment. I'm half-hoping the pills I'm taking keep working as ineffectively as they have been so far, so my consultant recognises the true rampaging awfulness of my disease and puts me to the top of all lists for the best, most urgent treatment.

Actually, my right arm doesn't fully straighten now - it just stops with a pain at the elbow at about 170%.

Two days out from my first consultant's appointment:

I had a vague memory of a connection between some form of arthritis and a certain ex-goalkeeper turned tv sports pundit turned world campaigner against the Reptilian Menace.

I checked and it's true. David Icke has rheumatoid arthritis:

I was given etoricoxib, a COX-2 inhibitor, by my GP. After looking it up, finding it wasn't approved for use by the US FDA, and reflecting that my GP hadn't given me a blood pressure test before prescribing, I called up the surgery to express my unease.

Still waiting for my first appointment with a rheumatology consultant and the pain was getting a little more than the 4-hourly 400mg of Ibuprofen could manage to cover so I phoned my GP surgery and arranged to pick up a prescription for something else a little more powerful.

It turns out that the something else is Arcoxia, a Merk-produced product that contains etoricoxib, a COX-2 inhibitor. It's not approved by the US FDA because of an increased chance of 'adverse cardiovascular events'.